2024.05.17
40th ANNIVERSARY EDITION OF ATOMIC CAFÉ TO BE HELD AT GYPSY AVALON
Fuji Rock’s initiatives and issues facing society
40th anniversary edition of Atomic Café to be held at NEW POWER GEAR Field / Gypsy Avalon
Since being first held in 1997, Fuji Rock Festival has worked towards “living in harmony with nature” and bring members of it’s audience opportunities to consider the issues facing society and our communities today.
The festival has continued to work towards living in harmony with nature and transfer to clean energies by creating chances for NGO organizations working on issues such as the environment, human rights, and world peace, to speak to the audience from on-stage, creating space for them to communicate their message, and advocating the use of clean sustainable power sources such as biodiesel and solar power at the festival.
Since the disaster at Tokyo Electric Power Company’s nuclear power plant in Fukushima in March of 2011, Fuji Rock has provided space for the anti-nuclear weapon and power event, Atomic Café that has been working on this issue since the 80’s, in the Gypsy Avalon area.
About Atomic Café in 2024
The Atomic Café was first held at the Hibiya Pavilion in 1984 as an anti-nuclear power and weapons movement. Having once paused their work in the 80’s, the event was re-created at Fuji Rock Festival when faced with the nuclear disaster at Fukushima in 2011.
Since then, the festival and event has remained committed to abandoning the use of nuclear power and shifting to alternative energy sources.
This year marks the 40th year since the event was first held and the event will feature three days of lectures and seminars at Gypsy Avalon in Fuji Rock Festival.
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| Featured Speakers |
MC for the three days will be journalist and host of PolitasTV, Daisuke Tsuda. |
| Live Performances |
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The Atomic Café
In 1957, the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament (CND) was established in the United Kingdom, and the peace symbol, which looks like a bird’s foot, was used as an anti-nuclear symbol. Later, in 1979, a concert with NO NUKES (anti-nuclear weapons and anti-nuclear energy) as the core message was held featuring Jackson Browne and Bruce Springsteen, and in the 1980s, the symbol peace mark was displayed on stage at the Glastonbury Festival in the U.K., and the film “The Atomic Cafe,” a compilation of propagandistic video clips about nuclear weapons and nuclear energy was released in the United States, raising awareness of anti-nuclear and anti-nuclear issues worldwide. In 1984, volunteers from the music industry in Japan gathered to hold an anti-nuclear concert, “The Atomic Cafe Festival,” at Hibiya Yaon. Shogo Hamada, Yutaka Ozaki, and others performed to raise awareness of nuclear weapons and nuclear energy issues. Two years later, in 1986, when a major nuclear accident occurred in Chornobyl, the group began holding not only concerts but also talk events to convey the risks posed by nuclear energy. The Atomic Cafe had a hiatus after that but returned to Fuji Rock in 2011. Since then, they have been holding talks and live events every year at Gypsy Avalon, focusing on issues such as the abandonment of nuclear power plants, the shift to sustainable energy, and other various social issues regarding the environment and peace.